NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed important prelaunch milestones as it prepares to launch nine months ahead of schedule. Engineers at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida raised Roman from horizontal to vertical, signaling preparations are moving forward for upcoming inspections, functional testing, and integration work.
Technicians transferred the observatory to NASA Kennedy inside its specialized, climate-controlled shipping container. Following Roman’s arrival, the team moved the telescope to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility for inspection after its trip from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Engineers completed additional cleaning to remove any trace contaminants from the facility’s airlock before crews unboxed and raised Roman vertically in the high bay.
Named for NASA’s first chief astronomer and “mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,” the Roman Space Telescope will offer a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s, resulting in deep, sweeping explorations of the cosmos.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.
To learn more about the Roman mission, visit:
www.nasa.gov/roman
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